Salvation - Mike Ballesteros

Posted by Steve on 17 September 2010 | 0 Comments

Tell us about your sci-fi web series.

Salvation came out of a challenge for the DVX user.com Film Festival. Once we finished production on it, we created a series of episodes that would actually lead up to the ending. However, as with all things low budget, production halted until relatively recently due to financial concerns.

The show itself is sort of a Twilight Zone type of dark sci-fi.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

As a fan of the genre my influences are books like Snow Crash and Neuromancer, old RPG's like Palladium's Rifts and the game Shadowrun. Cinematically, I love Blade Runner, the Firefly series and Aliens. I also have to add a guilty pleasure Starship Troopers. However the book was also great. They changed so much of it in the translation to film that I see them as different stories.

Tell us about the technical production of your show. What camera & equipment did you use? Editing software & hardware? For visual effects, etc?

Salvation was produced on a $500 budget. I had two other people on my crew. I did all of the Post work on it and we shot it in one night. The set was built in my garage over about five weeks.

We shot the project with a few 1k Lowels, an HVX200 with an M2 adapter and Nikor lenses.

Can you tell us any interesting facts or trivia about your show? Any funny stories?

A funny, well rather a unique story is about the sparks at the end. I was behind the door with a torch. The sparks were real and  hitting Bree's legs. Poor thing was a trooper. It was dumb, dangerous and yet made for a great shot.

Salvation can be found online here.

Salvation - SciFinal Page

More behind the scenes from Salvation below:

Bree Michael Warner as Lt. Spears in the pod.

The Pod on the monitor.

Full Salvation set.

Shooting the pod.

Working on the Salvation set.